I know there's a narrative of kids not playing cricket, but in the area I prowl (Surrey, which in cricket terms also includes most of south London) the numbers of both kids and adults are soaring, there are more teams and players than ever and the constraint is having enough time and grounds to accommodate them all. I've even seen stats to back this up.
Presumably in other region(s) this isn't the case. I still think a lot of it is driven by the failure of marketing people to understand that, in England, cricket is a game of the thousands of town and villages, not a game of the inner cities, where (they imagine) all the lovely commercial potential is.
Pom Bears will no doubt solve everything.